(March 2, 2012) – John Crane announces the official opening of its expanded and upgraded Middle East and Africa Headquarters, with a new Service and Manufacturing facility in Dubai. The new 2,000 sq m facility has been created by John Crane Middle East FZE, and is the result of a major program of investment and development. As such, it represents another clear indication of John Crane’s commitment to its customers in this important region.
The company’s original building in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza) covered some 2,000 sq m, and a brand new 2,000 sq m service and manufacturing facility has now been built adjacent to this. The new premises – which have been awarded a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification - house many impressive facilities, including one of the world’s largest state-of-the-art gas seal test rigs. The rig, used to conduct dynamic testing of gas seals, features a customer viewing suite, an on-line witness testing and reporting facility, plus full inspection services. Full diagnostic, inspection and refurbishment facilities for both wet seals and metal bellows are available at the plant, which also houses a new Central Parts Warehouse. This gives Gulf region customers easy and local access to a far more comprehensive inventory of John Crane spares than previously, as well as rapid connections to the company’s extensive global spares network.
Ibrahim Aljanahi, Jafza Deputy CEO said: “John Crane’s significant investment in Jafza is a testimony of their commitment to the region and their trust in the free zone. Since it set up base in Jafza, John Crane has continued to grow and capitalize on the huge opportunities in the Middle East and Africa. I am sure the new facility will help them serve the region more efficiently and grow further. The industrial sector has a responsibility to uphold sustainable development and John Crane’s new LEED certified building is a good example of this. We congratulate them for their forward looking initiative and extend our full support and best wishes for their greater success in future.”
Ruben Alvarez, Managing Director, John Crane Middle East and Africa, said: “We are justifiably proud of the outstanding new facilities that the expansion project has delivered. Our aim is to be recognized by process and energy industry customers in this area as the automatic provider of choice for engineered solutions. We firmly believe that this gives us an extremely competitive advantage and allows us to offer our customers more rapid turnaround times, greater technical assistance and even better levels of value-added support than ever before.”
John Crane’s financial, commercial, regional marketing and training teams will continue to operate from the expanded facility, which will also house regional applications and field service engineering support teams for the Middle East and North Africa, a regional projects team, plus regional turbo-machinery and asset management teams which both cover the Middle East and Africa.
“These knowledge-based engineering, operations and turbo-machinery teams will continue to provide dedicated support and technology expertise to our customers,” Alvarez added. “John Crane has a long history of involvement in this region and strong relationships with many, many customers. The feedback they have provided has helped shape our strategic plans for the Middle East region, and this expansion of our Dubai facility is tangible proof of those plans being translated into action.
“It means we can now provide whatever our customers need in order to achieve greater efficiency, increased reliability and improved maintenance programmes, in a local and easily accessible manner. This is also just one aspect of our wider programme of investment in the Middle East which has already seen the expansion and upgrading of a number of our other facilities in the region.”